English Naming Research Articles

Naming interlingual homographs: Variable competition and the role of the decision system

To investigate decision level processes involved in bilingual word recognition tasks, Dutch–English participants had to name Dutch–English homographs in English. In a stimulus list containing items from both languages, interlingual homographs yielded longer naming latencies, more Dutch responses, and more other errors in both response languages if they had a high-frequency Dutch reading. Dutch naming latencies were slower than or equally slow as English naming latencies. In a stimulus list containing only English words and homographs, there was no homograph effect in naming latencies, although homographs did elicit more errors than control words. The results are interpreted as the consequence of list-induced variability in the competition between lexical items of the two languages involved. In addition, two additional decision processes have to be assumed: a language check, and a response deadline for non-target-language responses.

Confidence Judgments on Color Category Best Exemplars

Although basic color terms and basic color appearances have been shown to produce higher confidence ratings in a variety of naming and judgment tasks, our findings suggest that when different ethnolinguistic cultures are compared, higher confidence is not strictly linked to the basic foci of Berlin and Kay nor the centroid samples identified by Boynton and colleagues. This raises important questions about high confidence as evidence of the salience of basic color foci, a point central to the widely accepted basic color-term theoretical framework. This study analyzes confidence judgment data for Vietnamese and English color naming, suggesting that high confidence may be more directly linked to aspects of a task rather than universal focal color stimuli. Culture-specific patterns of naming, an individual’s access to shared cultural knowledge, and goodness of fit between exemplars and names provide a more complete explanation of the higher confidence observed for certain color appearances.

English naming task in Chinese children with English reading disorder

目的 研究英语阅读障碍儿童操作英语词汇的相关能力,探索英语阅读障碍的表现特点与矫治的手段.方法英语真、假词命名实验,观察34名阅读障碍儿童和34名对照组儿童的实验结果.结果 (1)障碍组右视野在真、假词的命名时间上与对照组存在显著差异;(2)障碍组在真词和假词上的命名错误率均大于正常组,假词命名的错误率大幅增加.(3)障碍组右视野的真词命名时间明显长于左视野,假词命名的错误率也明显大于左视野.结论英语阅读障碍的儿童显示出了操作英语语音能力的欠缺以及左测大脑半球活动水平不足的倾向。

Lexical learning of the English language: a PET study in healthy French subjects

To investigate the neural correlates of word learning in adults, 10 right-handed French subjects who had learned English without mastering it performed an English and a French naming task during two PET sessions, one before (PET1) and the second after (PET2) a 4-week lexical training in English. Behavioral performance was collected during the two PET exams and 2 months after (T3). At T2, performance on English naming increased in all subjects; this improvement persisted at T3, with no correlation between English performance at T2 and T3. Cerebral activation during French naming mainly showed a left frontal temporal network. The pattern specifically associated with English lexical learning included, in addition to the anterior cingulate cortex involved in attentional processing and BAs 4/6 reflecting speech output, the right cerebellum and the left insular cortex that are linked to speech gesture learning, and the right medial temporal regions, likely to reflect the involvement of episodic memory during verbal learning. Correlations between English T2/T1 performance and English T2/T1 rCBF changes reinforced the hypothesis of intervention of episodic memory since they interested right frontal, hippocampal, and lateral temporal regions. ‘Predictive’ correlations between English T3/T2 performance and English T2/T1 rCBF changes showed, in good reminders, increased activities in the left posterior superior temporal sulcus and middle temporal cortex probably related to efficient semantic storage of learned words.

Lexical Decision and Word Naming in Bilinguals: Language Effects and Task Effects

We studied effects of 18 variables on Dutch and English lexical decision, standard word naming, and delayed word naming performed by Dutch-English bilinguals. The stimuli were 440 Dutch nouns and their English translations. In lexical decision in both languages the frequency variables were the most important predictors and the semantic variables also played a role. In addition, English lexical decision was affected by length. In contrast, onset structure was the most important predictor in Dutch naming, and it was also relatively important in English naming. In Dutch and English standard naming, word length and the intensity of the onset were also important variables and the word's neighborhood also played a role. The meaning variables affected performance in English naming but not in Dutch naming. These results are discussed in terms of differences in (1) task requirements, (2) orthographic depth, and (3) our participants' language proficiency in Dutch and English.

The Use of Modifying Terms in the Naming and Categorization of Color Appearances in Vietnamese and English

AbstractCross-cultural studies of color naming show that basic terms are universally the most frequently used to name colors. However, such basic color terms are always used in the context of larger linguistic systems when specific properties of color experience are described. To investigate naturalistic naming behaviors, we examined the use of modifiers in English and Vietnamese color naming using an unconstrained naming task (Jameson & Alvarado, in press). Monolingual and bilingual subjects named a representative set of 110 color stimuli sampled from a commonly used color-order stimulus space. Results revealed greater reliance upon polylexemic naming among monolingual Vietnamese speakers and greater use of monolexemic basic hue terms and secondary terms (object glosses) among monolingual English speakers. Systematic differences across these language groups imply that widely used monolexemic naming methods may differentially impact color-naming findings in cross-cultural investigations of color cognition.

Spatial language and spatial representation: a cross-linguistic comparison

We examined the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory by comparing native English, Japanese, and Korean speakers' naming of spatial locations and their spatial memory for the same set of locations. We focused on two kinds of spatial organization: axial structure of the reference object, and contact/support with respect to its surface. The results of two language (naming) tasks showed similar organization across the three language groups in terms of axial structure, but differences in organization in terms of contact/support. In contrast, the results of two memory tasks were the same across language groups for both axial structure and contact/support. Moreover, the relationship between spatial language and spatial memory in the two sets of tasks did not show a straightforward isomorphism between the two systems. We conclude that spatial language and spatial memory engage the same kinds of spatial properties, suggesting similarity in the foundations of the two systems. However, the two systems appear to be partially independent: the preservation of particular spatial properties was not mandatory across languages, nor across memory tasks, and cross-linguistic differences in spatial language did not lead to differences in the non-linguistic encoding of location. We speculate that the similarity in linguistic and non-linguistic representations of space may emerge as a functional consequence of negotiating the spatial world.

The Names of Comedy.

Unlike tragic dramatists, who have usually inherited their characters' names from history or myth, comic writers are name-givers. They have always confronted a fundamental choice: whether to give speaking names, expressing the nature of the characters, or accidental ones, which allow for greater independence and for change. These different attitudes towards naming are bound up with the larger debate about the truthful or arbitrary nature of language itself: the debate formalized in Plato's dialogue Cratylus, and continuing today. This book takes the as its starting point. It examines the way individual dramatists and varieties of comedy are drawn either towards the position of Plato's Hermogenes, who believes that names are arbitrary impositions, or towards the essentialist view held by Cratylus himself. It claims that although the bias of comedy is inherently Cratylic, it is a bias perpetually being modified and corrected by the rival approach to naming. The first chapter is concerned with Aristophanes, and with the varying onomastic allegiances of Menander, Plautus and Terence. The second examines English mediaeval drama, partly in relation to the introduction and spread of surnames, while the third considers the contribution of Hermogenean and Cratylic attitudes to modes of comedy established during the early 16th century and their subsequent polarization in Shakespeare and Jonson. At the heart of the book lie two chapters on Shakespeare, naming and names. Chapter five looks at a group of Shakespeare plays - the Fenriad, Romeo and Juliet and Othello - in which naming strategies associated with comedy are made to operate within alien contexts. The book ends with general chapters on namelessness in tragedy, comedy and folklore, and its consequences for social and personal identity. A brief epilogue traces the history of English comic naming from the Restoration to Beckett.